In a communication network, a network administrator is a node associated with the network that is responsible for monitoring and configuring the operation of the network by instructing various nodes in the network to perform and to report tasks and status. Accordingly, the network administrator may have access to a database of information relating to all nodes in the network. As the number of nodes becomes large, for example, to 500,000, the amount of data accesses to the database by the administrator becomes large, requiring significant time and resources to process.
Typically, for a network administrator, a relational database management system (RDBMS) is used to process queries by the administrator. The RDBMS comprises a computer, data storage devices, disk drives and database management software, and uses relational techniques for storing and retrieving information. The RDBMS accepts commands to store, retrieve, and delete data. A well-known set of commands is based on the Structured Query Language (SQL). The constructs of SQL allow a RDBMS to provide a response to a particular query with a particular set of data for a database. SQL however does not specify the actual method to find the requested information. The method in which the query is processed affects the overall time for retrieving the data. Efficient data retrievals minimize computer and disk access times, and therefore, optimize the computational cost of doing the query.
Prior art systems access information from the database and copy retrieved information directly into a global shared buffer. Accesses to the global shared buffer populate a target data structure in the administrator. The population of the target data structure is performed at start-up of the administrator. Each access to the database is done sequentially, which collectively may require several hours to complete for a large network.
Accordingly, there is a need for a dynamic and efficient method and system for retrieving data from a database after queries are entered.